[time-nuts] Very large X9.2 solar flare.

[jimlux]

On 9/6/17 2:46 PM, David G. McGaw wrote:
> It also produced a CME.  Read the note on spaceweather.com.
>
> David N1HAC
>
>
> On 9/6/17 5:19 PM, Alan Melia wrote:
>> The flare has been and gone!.......is this another case of journalists
>> mixing up a flare with a CME ?
>> Alan
>> G3NYK
>>


CME was earlier this week, whether it is connected to the subsequent 
flare, or it's just coincidence is a question of heliophysics.

This is somewhat poorly understood - in fact, in a few years (2021 - 
NASA funding willing) we're going to put some satellites into orbit 
above GEO to look at radio emissions (Type II radio bursts) from the sun 
connected with CMEs.  Time-nuts connection is that we're going to be 
doing interferometry among the multiple satellites which means the 
independent recordings have to be time synchronized for processing. 
We're planning on using GPS satellites on the "other side" of the earth, 
grazing the limb, and a suitably stable onboard oscillator.  I don't 
imagine I have to explain the general timing concept to this particular 
crowd<grin>.

The idea is that we can see more of the physics of the creation and 
emission of the CME, and more importantly, *where* the changes are 
occurring as the CME evolves.

CMEs, as the name implies, occur in the corona.  Flares are tied to 
sunspots, and occur in the surface or deeper.  Granted, both phenomena 
are all tied up in twisting lines of magnetic fields, so there may be 
some relationship among them.

I'm just learning all this heliophysics stuff - all I have to do is 
build, launch, and operate the satellites - Top women and men on the 
science team will do the physics with the data.